Well, it’s over. The first of the next generation has joined the ranks of the newly married. Sunrise, sunset, and all that jazz. My brother Paul, the FOTB, was uncharacteristically without control of the situation. He didn’t seem concerned, and appeared to accept that pacing about and smiling were his only duties. Hmmm. That sounds roughly reminiscent of what he did when the bride entered the world twenty-five years ago. I have tried to link a sample of the song to which the FOTB and Lynn, the bride, danced at the reception: Roger and Jessica Whittaker singing “Perfect Day”, but it didn't work. Brother. The sap had to choose something that produced more salt water than Puget Sound (which, incidentally, laps the bulkhead a few yards outside their beach home on Whidbey Island). It made a person forget she was sitting amid the Ghosts of Nudists Past.
Have you ever heard the story about the woman who lay in her casket, a fork in her hand? As the story goes, she was a potluck supper aficionado, as are many of us with discriminating gourmet tastes in Midwestern church basements. When the kitchen committee comes to clear the table, they remind people to keep their forks for the dessert buffet. Our deceased friend said that in keeping her fork, she knew that the best was yet to come. Therefore, as she was leaving this earth, she was preparing herself for Paradise. The best was yet to come.
Paul should have been handing out forks as we left the reception.
The invitation arrived early in the summer. After the wedding, my brother was proposing to host family and significant friends for a few days at Ocean Shores, about two hours down the coast from Seattle. The event included two banquets, all recreation, the hotel room and any other meals we may choose during our stay. Remember the part the day before when Paul had little control of the situation? He had taken it outside – to Ocean Shores.
To make everything even more memorable, the bride and groom were postponing their honeymoon for a few days so they could join in the celebratory fun. These nieces of ours, the Seattle girls, inherited their gracious class from their mother Carol. We Onerheims are responsible for their boisterous senses of humor and the uncontrollable urge to smack a sibling before and during adolescence. Carol gets the credit for taming the Onerheim-ness in them to a palatable social acceptance. How else could we have expected the wedding to be so beautiful? It was Carol, Lynn, and sometimes Lisa, teaming up for an understated, elegant affair. We can’t get enough of these Seattle Onerheim girls, and they seem to bid a sincere return of the sentiment. As for the Ocean Shores trip, Jeff, the groom, was coming, and who could resist the chance to break him in? It’s never too late for that, especially with the vows firmly in place.
Once everyone had responded to the invitation to Ocean Shores, Paul went to work. Before long I got the next e-mail, and then a call from The Sound.
“Hey, Kari?”
"Hi! Hey, I got your e-mail! I couldn’t put it down!”
“It made sense to you then?”
We Scandinavians always put “then” on the end of our sentences. “Are you coming with me then?” is a popular turn of phrase.
“Yeah! I love it! There is one thing I must confess to noticing, however, and it pains me to bring it up. You have me down for two massages. Either that means I get two to everybody else’s one, or you left someone out.”
“Oh. Okay. I didn’t notice that, but thanks for telling me. Do you think this is something I can go ahead and send to everyone, and they’ll find it helpful?”
“Absolutely!”
I will now attempt to put Tome de Paul into a nutshell. This thing is a showstopper, and only someone who didn’t have to plan one second of a wedding could put this much energy into an itinerary. Being an Onerheim myself, and a bit prone to making a major project out of signing up for cell phone service, I was into every nuance, blip, and flow of this document.
Page 1 of 5 starts off with “Driving Directions and Carpools”. Map Quest is a poser when it compares to Paul getting people from Point A to Point B. Make that Point P. The carpool spreadsheet was a particular comfort to me, being from out-of-town, out-of-state, out-of-region, and out-of-touch, in general. Entitled “Ocean Shores Carpools”, it listed the Driver in one column, To Ocean Shores Passengers in the next, followed by From Ocean Shores Passengers. The last column was reserved for “Comments”. Wisely, Paul provided the comments, which included things like who was to be dropped at the airport and who was going to Oregon or Canada after the holiday. It would have been really stupid for him to leave the “Comments” column up for grabs and not expect Neil and me to toy with. I derived my comfort from knowing I was expected to be in someone’s car in each direction, which reduced my chances of getting left somewhere by several degrees.
“Check-in, Check-out Time” came next. Paul anticipated all questions that could have arisen at the front desk during either of these moments in time, and provided instructions on how they could be dealt with. The Room Assignments were in this section, too. I thought it was a particularly good call that Lynn and Jeff were rooming together. This sharing-your-honeymoon-with-the-fam thing could only be expected to go so far. Lisa’s boyfriend Ryan got to bunk with The Barn. Now that I think about it, it’s never too early to break ‘em in with the Onerheims, either! All hotel amenities were listed in this section. They didn’t joke around with the amenities at this place, either. We stayed in suites.
Article III, Section 1a begins the massage missive. This was my favorite chapter of the whole book. Paul scouted out the local massage therapist in Ocean Shores and told her how many one-hour massages he was planning to book. As he put it, “Ocean Shores isn’t the largest town in Washington, so we’ve pretty much cleaned out the supply of massage therapists for the time we’re in the hotel!” Apparently, they had to scrounge for extra LMTs in neighboring burgs. Massages started at 3:00 p..m. on the day of our arrival, continuing through 4:30 p.m. of the second day of our stay, and were being performed non-stop in no less than three separate locations. Don’t tell Neil, but I think Paul is my favorite brother. Oh, yeah. As it turned out, the person Paul forgot to book for a massage was Carol. It’s a good thing I said something. By this point, she was the most deserving.
The next two sections included lists of things to do in Ocean Shores, which are more generous than I can recount here. We had some takers on the horseback riding and the mopeds, but no kite-flyers or mini-golfers were among us.
There was shopping. Ta-daaaaaaa! Ocean Shores has a combination quilt-knitting shop. Glory be! I got to schmooze with Pacific Northwestern needle-ites, and learned whether or not they had had knitting needles confiscated on the plane as dangerous weapons. The Dot had picked out some mohair for a scarf she wanted to knit, and was hoping this would make the return-trip to the Midwest more enjoyable. We got the go-ahead from the babes in the yarn line, made our purchase, and chalked one up in the lint column for the trip.
In the last section, Paul was able to do what U.S. Cellular, Cingular, and Verizon have not. We carried with us a complete cell phone directory of all the numbers of our party. Yowza. I’m having mine laminated.
We joke around a lot as a group, and it’s not hard to relate the fun we have together. Swapping wisecracks and one-liners can be a kick, and I come from a good bloodline for it. I have been able to further hone my skills over the years by being married to Hubba. What is harder to put down in black-and-white is the soft Monet tone of these wedding and post-wedding moments. I was just the aunt of the bride, so what do I know, but Carol and her daughters surely made the wedding day one of leisurely bliss and pleasant memories. Today Carol remarked that the wedding itself seemed to happen in slow motion. I agree, because I never felt any tension or strain. It was a palatable joy to see this marriage unfold, and to unify with loved ones to send our deepest heart-wishes for many years of togetherness for this shining young couple. It was like they knew everyone in the sanctuary was beaming tidings of strength and love to them. The day was about more than the dress or flowers or even a reception at a nudist colony. It was about the people who gathered in devotion and exultation, and the God that allows us appreciate it.
Ocean Shores? All kidding aside, it was the icing on the wedding cake. Thanks, Paul. I’m glad I brought my fork.
©Copyright August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
Vacating the Nest in the Pacific Northwest
Note from the author: I am in Washington State, deep in pre-wedding activities, and won't be posting as usual on Saturday. I am just closing down after my first day here, where I've walked in the middle of Puget Sound during low tide, and gone crabbing for tomorrow night's dinner. This seems like a good time to put up Saturday's post, and get it off my plate so that more immediate squeaks can be oiled. I'll be here next Saturday, too, so it's anyone's guess what I'll have to report then. Enjoy!
----------------------
We headed out this week, The Barn, The Dot, and I. The eldest of the next generation of Onerheims is getting hitched, and we wanted to have a first-person account of the family passage. Festivities are in the Pacific Northwest, and I like it here. It is kind of like Decorah, only with an ocean and one mondo airplane hangar. There are lots of resettled Scandihoovians in the region, so they have incorporated words like “lefse” and “rommegrot” into their lexicons. They can pronounce Dale of Norway without calling it “Dale” -- it's “dolly”, and they make those fabulous Norwegian sweaters you see. The really fabulous ones.
My brother Paul and his wife Carol offsprung two, both girls. Lora and I each have one boy and one girl, and Jeanie has two boys. That evens out the count of eight total, four boys and four girls.
Neil and Judith opted to become world travelers. The nieces and nephews benefit greatly by their choice, as it is life enriching to have an exotic aunt and uncle who talk about their Sherpa guide, or heading for Europe to catch an opera. At one family reunion, Uncle Neil passed out tissue-wrapped packages, one to each niece and nephew. He seemed particular about who got which package, though each bundle appeared identical. Lynn got hers first, followed by Morgan, then Lisa, Leslie, Tad, Colin, Bert, and Curtis. Inside were navy blue ball caps, each bearing one white letter. Shoulder shrug – I don't get it... Following his instructions, they lined up in birth order, and the plot was revealed. O-N-E-R-H-E-I-M was spelled out down a stairstep grade of heads – an even number of grandchildren for the name to be spelled exactly. It brought tears to my eyes. Neil is so like that.
Our bride Lynn was the first to receive a nine-patch quilt, my gift for this generation's high school graduations. Her design was called a shaded nine-patch, and I used the most current fabrics I could find – mostly Modas -- to give it a muted, college-girl look. Its name is “Roots and Wings, an Olson-Onerheim Original”, and a sailboat is appliquéd on the back as a label. It suited my vision of those girls growing up in the Pacific Northwest, and I hoped the patch of corn fabric I included would remind her of her father's roots in Iowa. Her wedding quilt, which isn't done yet, of course, is a sampler-style medley of rose-themed blocks, sort of a tribute to Grandma Onerheim. Both she and Lynn's Grandpa Olson have really good seats for the wedding, gazing down from heaven.
Weddings are a big deal anymore. It's not just the marriage part, but the fun so many people have planning the glorious event. For awhile I sneered at such extravaganzas, but I've since understood that lots of people really like making their wedding days special, to share their seemingly endless joy with cherished family and friends.
In our case, The Dot could hardly bring herself to wear a jumper and tights, let alone pine for a fantasy wedding dress. She refused invitations to the prom early in her high school career, because she flat-out hated the clothes. Eventually, she decided she really should attend her Junior-Senior Proms, on the off chance that she'd regret it later if she didn't. Once she got rolling, she began to enjoy the lark, and was glad to have done it.
My brother and his family are pragmatists, but a wedding is a wedding. You're going to need a dress, a cake, some music, and a place to hold the reception. There's hair, so you may as well throw in the nails. And a pedicure. Taste-testing cakes can be rewarding, and they assure me they found something I won't spit out in disgust. Ha! Like that would ever happen!
About six weeks into the process, I was talking to Paul on the phone. He said the wedding plans were going fine. He was in charge of check writing, and nobody had complained about his role yet. Not much slips by Paul, so I figured he knew a lot more than he was letting on. After years of being the only male occupant, I assumed he had learned when to offer his support, and when to shut up and write the dang check. It didn't mean he couldn't be entertained by the events as they unfolded, however.
In Decorah, there isn’t the same array of options for wedding receptions as there are in Big Cities. I prefer the church basement, but that is less and less common. People these days seem to party elsewhere after the wedding. Hubba and I had our reception in “the church parlors”, as it was called at First Lutheran in Ottumwa, Iowa. I thought it sounded elegant when put that way, “the church parlors”. Things were rather dignified, which turns out to be polite, Bible-belt code for “boring”.
When I moved to northeast Iowa, I was shocked to discover wedding dances. Are you kidding? People go out and drink and dance after a church wedding? Criminy, the priest showed up and had a highball with the parents of the bride! It took some real getting used-to.
Hubba and I joined a golf course, which is referred to as a country club in our region. It's in the country, so I guess that counts. We have been to lots of wedding receptions at the clubhouse there, but it's not The Ritz. Neither are the other golf courses in the area. We had Matter's Ballroom, but it burned down. Nob Hill Supper Club has been taking most of the overflow caused by that tragedy, along with Jewell's Skate Country, the local roller rink. We also have a century-old converted dairy barn on the local private hunting preserve, Chase the Adventure. It's real down-home hunting lodgey. The Cliff House is now The Bluffs Inn. Cliffs, bluffs, whatever trips your trigger, but they still hold receptions there in the restaurant, now called The Oaks Steakhouse. I could continue to name places, but it tends to be a second-verse-same-as-the-first exercise. We make do quite well, and places like the Elks Club and the historically registered KC Hall in Ossian have a lot more color than a hotel ballroom off the Interstate.
For elegance on a par with any Big City digs, we have The Hotel Winneshiek. A wedding reception there would dazzle anybody, anywhere. It's like not being in Decorah at all, really, but its unexpected-ness is a large part of its charm.
Choosing a place to hold a wedding reception in Greater Seattleland can be unnerving. Where to start? The list to choose from is daunting, and you never know just what you're missing if you don't check around. Understandably, you develop a new awareness of the skyline, as you drive, scan it, and plan a wedding gala.
Carol and Lynn had passed a club several times as they gadded about, putting together Wedding Numero Uno. It was a seriously gorgeous place, worthy of the honor of hosting the first-of-the-next generation wedding reception, but it was a private club.
“Maybe you could join that club, and then we could have the reception there.”
“Naw, your father and I just moved out to the Island. We don't really want to join a club over here.”
“I wonder if you have to be a member just to have a reception there.”
“Now there's a thought. We could at least ask.”
They made a phone call, and found out that this particular club did book events with non-members. They could have a Sunday reception there, and the price was darn good! Once they were able to see it firsthand, they knew they had found the place. It was perfect in size, and was attractively affordable. They knew Paul would be pleased that they were able to secure such a handsome facility at a decent price.
“We booked the reception, Dad.”
“Yes! We found a place that's handy, and very lovely. We knew it was a private club, but when we checked, it all worked out like it was meant to be. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
"Where is this Nirvana?” Pacific Northwesterners still use the term “Nirvana” frequently.
They told him, and he asked a few more clarifying questions.
“You know where we're talking about, don't you?”
“Yes, I do. Did you go see the place?”
“Of course. It was perfect. It is a very charming space at a reasonable rate.”
“Did they tell you anything else about the club?”
“No. They aren't making us join it, or anything. It's a private club, and we're just using it for one party.”
“Well, ladies, it might interest you to know that you're holding the wedding reception at a nudist camp.”
“A wha...?”
“Well, maybe it's not a nudist camp anymore. Current rumor is that a group of swingers bought out the nudists. The Lord sure works in mysterious ways, doesn't He? Now, who do I make the check out to?”
“Very funny.”
This has to be good. I'm looking forward to my first wedding reception in a nudist colony, but I'm bringing along some Clorox® wipes to pass out at the reception. Some of us may want to swab down our seats before we sit down.
You know, the roller rink/wedding reception combo looks better all the time.
©Copyright August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
----------------------
We headed out this week, The Barn, The Dot, and I. The eldest of the next generation of Onerheims is getting hitched, and we wanted to have a first-person account of the family passage. Festivities are in the Pacific Northwest, and I like it here. It is kind of like Decorah, only with an ocean and one mondo airplane hangar. There are lots of resettled Scandihoovians in the region, so they have incorporated words like “lefse” and “rommegrot” into their lexicons. They can pronounce Dale of Norway without calling it “Dale” -- it's “dolly”, and they make those fabulous Norwegian sweaters you see. The really fabulous ones.
My brother Paul and his wife Carol offsprung two, both girls. Lora and I each have one boy and one girl, and Jeanie has two boys. That evens out the count of eight total, four boys and four girls.
Neil and Judith opted to become world travelers. The nieces and nephews benefit greatly by their choice, as it is life enriching to have an exotic aunt and uncle who talk about their Sherpa guide, or heading for Europe to catch an opera. At one family reunion, Uncle Neil passed out tissue-wrapped packages, one to each niece and nephew. He seemed particular about who got which package, though each bundle appeared identical. Lynn got hers first, followed by Morgan, then Lisa, Leslie, Tad, Colin, Bert, and Curtis. Inside were navy blue ball caps, each bearing one white letter. Shoulder shrug – I don't get it... Following his instructions, they lined up in birth order, and the plot was revealed. O-N-E-R-H-E-I-M was spelled out down a stairstep grade of heads – an even number of grandchildren for the name to be spelled exactly. It brought tears to my eyes. Neil is so like that.
Our bride Lynn was the first to receive a nine-patch quilt, my gift for this generation's high school graduations. Her design was called a shaded nine-patch, and I used the most current fabrics I could find – mostly Modas -- to give it a muted, college-girl look. Its name is “Roots and Wings, an Olson-Onerheim Original”, and a sailboat is appliquéd on the back as a label. It suited my vision of those girls growing up in the Pacific Northwest, and I hoped the patch of corn fabric I included would remind her of her father's roots in Iowa. Her wedding quilt, which isn't done yet, of course, is a sampler-style medley of rose-themed blocks, sort of a tribute to Grandma Onerheim. Both she and Lynn's Grandpa Olson have really good seats for the wedding, gazing down from heaven.
Weddings are a big deal anymore. It's not just the marriage part, but the fun so many people have planning the glorious event. For awhile I sneered at such extravaganzas, but I've since understood that lots of people really like making their wedding days special, to share their seemingly endless joy with cherished family and friends.
In our case, The Dot could hardly bring herself to wear a jumper and tights, let alone pine for a fantasy wedding dress. She refused invitations to the prom early in her high school career, because she flat-out hated the clothes. Eventually, she decided she really should attend her Junior-Senior Proms, on the off chance that she'd regret it later if she didn't. Once she got rolling, she began to enjoy the lark, and was glad to have done it.
My brother and his family are pragmatists, but a wedding is a wedding. You're going to need a dress, a cake, some music, and a place to hold the reception. There's hair, so you may as well throw in the nails. And a pedicure. Taste-testing cakes can be rewarding, and they assure me they found something I won't spit out in disgust. Ha! Like that would ever happen!
About six weeks into the process, I was talking to Paul on the phone. He said the wedding plans were going fine. He was in charge of check writing, and nobody had complained about his role yet. Not much slips by Paul, so I figured he knew a lot more than he was letting on. After years of being the only male occupant, I assumed he had learned when to offer his support, and when to shut up and write the dang check. It didn't mean he couldn't be entertained by the events as they unfolded, however.
In Decorah, there isn’t the same array of options for wedding receptions as there are in Big Cities. I prefer the church basement, but that is less and less common. People these days seem to party elsewhere after the wedding. Hubba and I had our reception in “the church parlors”, as it was called at First Lutheran in Ottumwa, Iowa. I thought it sounded elegant when put that way, “the church parlors”. Things were rather dignified, which turns out to be polite, Bible-belt code for “boring”.
When I moved to northeast Iowa, I was shocked to discover wedding dances. Are you kidding? People go out and drink and dance after a church wedding? Criminy, the priest showed up and had a highball with the parents of the bride! It took some real getting used-to.
Hubba and I joined a golf course, which is referred to as a country club in our region. It's in the country, so I guess that counts. We have been to lots of wedding receptions at the clubhouse there, but it's not The Ritz. Neither are the other golf courses in the area. We had Matter's Ballroom, but it burned down. Nob Hill Supper Club has been taking most of the overflow caused by that tragedy, along with Jewell's Skate Country, the local roller rink. We also have a century-old converted dairy barn on the local private hunting preserve, Chase the Adventure. It's real down-home hunting lodgey. The Cliff House is now The Bluffs Inn. Cliffs, bluffs, whatever trips your trigger, but they still hold receptions there in the restaurant, now called The Oaks Steakhouse. I could continue to name places, but it tends to be a second-verse-same-as-the-first exercise. We make do quite well, and places like the Elks Club and the historically registered KC Hall in Ossian have a lot more color than a hotel ballroom off the Interstate.
For elegance on a par with any Big City digs, we have The Hotel Winneshiek. A wedding reception there would dazzle anybody, anywhere. It's like not being in Decorah at all, really, but its unexpected-ness is a large part of its charm.
Choosing a place to hold a wedding reception in Greater Seattleland can be unnerving. Where to start? The list to choose from is daunting, and you never know just what you're missing if you don't check around. Understandably, you develop a new awareness of the skyline, as you drive, scan it, and plan a wedding gala.
Carol and Lynn had passed a club several times as they gadded about, putting together Wedding Numero Uno. It was a seriously gorgeous place, worthy of the honor of hosting the first-of-the-next generation wedding reception, but it was a private club.
“Maybe you could join that club, and then we could have the reception there.”
“Naw, your father and I just moved out to the Island. We don't really want to join a club over here.”
“I wonder if you have to be a member just to have a reception there.”
“Now there's a thought. We could at least ask.”
They made a phone call, and found out that this particular club did book events with non-members. They could have a Sunday reception there, and the price was darn good! Once they were able to see it firsthand, they knew they had found the place. It was perfect in size, and was attractively affordable. They knew Paul would be pleased that they were able to secure such a handsome facility at a decent price.
“We booked the reception, Dad.”
“Yes! We found a place that's handy, and very lovely. We knew it was a private club, but when we checked, it all worked out like it was meant to be. The Lord works in mysterious ways.”
"Where is this Nirvana?” Pacific Northwesterners still use the term “Nirvana” frequently.
They told him, and he asked a few more clarifying questions.
“You know where we're talking about, don't you?”
“Yes, I do. Did you go see the place?”
“Of course. It was perfect. It is a very charming space at a reasonable rate.”
“Did they tell you anything else about the club?”
“No. They aren't making us join it, or anything. It's a private club, and we're just using it for one party.”
“Well, ladies, it might interest you to know that you're holding the wedding reception at a nudist camp.”
“A wha...?”
“Well, maybe it's not a nudist camp anymore. Current rumor is that a group of swingers bought out the nudists. The Lord sure works in mysterious ways, doesn't He? Now, who do I make the check out to?”
“Very funny.”
This has to be good. I'm looking forward to my first wedding reception in a nudist colony, but I'm bringing along some Clorox® wipes to pass out at the reception. Some of us may want to swab down our seats before we sit down.
You know, the roller rink/wedding reception combo looks better all the time.
©Copyright August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
The Varied Industries Building
“What do you suppose she was thinking?”
“I don't know, but it looks like she was in a good mood.”
“I agree. I love the whole effect, and the simpleness of the overall design.”
“Look at the appliqué on this one over here. I bet she got giggly about that choice.”
“No doubt. I love it!”
My quilty friend Ann and I were two-in-a-million at the Iowa State Fair. The Iowa State Fair attracts over a million “fun-lovers” from around the world, and before the wise-cracks begin to swirl in and amongst your gray matter, nothing less than The New York Times listed our annual event in their best-selling thriller, 1000 Places to See Before You Die. The Times folks are talking world-wide, continent-by-continent places to pack in before you meet your Maker. Uh-huh. We have butter sculpture here. It's almost as engaging as the synchronized end-loader team that performed in Ossian Fest parade last week. They gave the Shriner clowns a run for their money. How can you not want to live here?
We walked among an impressive array of things to eat on a stick, and made our way to the Varied Industries Building. This is the place that exhibits quilts and other hand-made pieces of functional art. They once showed these items in kind of a dusty, hot, out-of-the way building, but a couple of years ago they erected a much nicer home for showing the blue ribbon winners and their lowly companions. Right. Lowly. We know what we're doing out here in fly-over country. You don't hear anybody in this exhibit hall saying, “You could get the same thing at Walmart for a lot less bother.”
People who make crafts for craft fairs talk about their experiences as exhibitors, and their collective observations are an echo. They speak of a betrayal, that their talents are belied as merely mass-producing articles with little cost of time or money. “I get so annoyed when people look over what I have and say, 'I can make that!' They don't seem to appreciate that it takes time and patience, not just the knowledge of how to construct an item.” If I find something I like at a craft fair, I'll buy it. I could never find anything similar in a store that would be made to most crafter's exacting standards.
No such belittling comments are heard in the Iowa State Fair Varied Industries Building. We honed in on the second floor, where the hand-made, art-to-use pieces were on display. Observers are always rewarded with the perfection of each year's harvest. Viewers in this exhibition hall speculate and discuss how something was made, admire the talent required, compliment the effort, and appreciate what they see. They wish for more hours in a day so they could learn to make it all themselves.
Looking at this year's crop of winners, I found myself conflicted. When we were at the knitting exhibits, I wanted to run home and pull out my needles. They have knitting machine specimens, as well as hand-knitted pieces. I have a knitting machine, but you know what I say, in my most disrespectful grammar: Me and machines don't get along. Garments! When was the last time I designed and made anything to wear? And hookers! I just cannot go there – there is no room in my life for hooking, too, though I would love to include it fully into my repertoire. Waaaaaah. I want to be a hooker!
Now the quilts – I can go there. I observe more than the finished quilt, and try to figure out how those quilts got from a bolt in a quilt shop to a berth at the Iowa State Fair. My distinct lack of competitiveness keeps me from aspiring to a fair ribbon, but not from looking at each years' winners. You can bet there are some who are dumbfounded that they won. Yes, we do have quilt snobs in the Midwest, but we have a heartier dose of modest quiltmakers who make quilts for the people they love, not for public recognition. They themselves are perplexed that more than one person would treasure what their needles wrought.
Machine quilting is becoming more and more common. I have tried it, and it is hard. You may want to refer to my previous ungrammatical observation about me and machines. If I can do something by hand, I'll do it that way, mainly to avoid a showdown with a dang bobbin of thread. That being said, we are seeing fewer and fewer quilts made entirely by one quiltmaker. The turn-of-the-century quilts from early in this millennium will hold a subset of rare hand-stitched phenoms. Make no mistake about it, the specimens of machine-quilted quilts we saw in Des Moines were pleasing, innovative, and done with great expertise. They were also plenteous. Hand-quilted quilts were few and far-between, and I could only hope that the person who pieced them was also the person who stitched them. We are talking a whole different category of quilts, by the way, which doesn't include friendship quilts constructed by many different hands as lintloving shows of appreciation and support.
This is not an attempt to discourage anyone from making quilts however they prefer, and in a way that gives them their best results. I don't want to leave the impression that hand-quilted quilts are always better than machine-quilted quilts. One trip to the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair would discredit that notion completely. My point is not to dissuade quilters from designing and creating according to their medium. We need all those quilts! It's an awareness thing.
My crusade is to raise awareness among quilters, and quilt-observers, of the need to appreciate and make more of these kinds of quilts from this point in history. Happily, some of my beginners are sitting with quilts on their laps and needles in their bethimbled hands. They ask questions about marking methods, and advance into the design concepts of quilting motifs that will best embellish their pieced originals. They are starting off their quilt careers knowing the value of their trouble, and that they will leave behind a prize from our era.
There is no “us” and “they” to this crusade. I have had quilts machine-quilted by very able machine-quilters, and admire the many techniques their procedure requires. This is an encouragement for more people to hand-stitch at least some of their quilts. It is worth your time and effort in history to do so. If you want to learn to quilt in an easy and unobtrusive way, I can show you. Other hand-quilters can show you, too. You don't have to be perfect in what you do, but you will most likely grow more satisfied with your results by the end of your first quilt. Your children, grandchildren, and beyond will see and touch your stitches, and be grateful for the connection.
Coincidentally, on they way home from Des Moines, I stopped in on my sister Lora. She returned a borrowed red wool jumper I'd made for The Dot when she was ten-years-old. I embroidered her monogram on the front of it in green and white, and it was our compromise Christmas dress of 1990. Morgan hated dresses, so I had her design one she could stomach to wear for the Christmas program at church that year, and then I made it up for her. The question that arose when I was in the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair 2005, was answered. It has been nearly fifteen years since I made a garment. It brought back a craving that for now I will redirect into quilting, and dream of a little grandchild that I can someday clothe in a fabric embrace.
©Copyright August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
“I don't know, but it looks like she was in a good mood.”
“I agree. I love the whole effect, and the simpleness of the overall design.”
“Look at the appliqué on this one over here. I bet she got giggly about that choice.”
“No doubt. I love it!”
My quilty friend Ann and I were two-in-a-million at the Iowa State Fair. The Iowa State Fair attracts over a million “fun-lovers” from around the world, and before the wise-cracks begin to swirl in and amongst your gray matter, nothing less than The New York Times listed our annual event in their best-selling thriller, 1000 Places to See Before You Die. The Times folks are talking world-wide, continent-by-continent places to pack in before you meet your Maker. Uh-huh. We have butter sculpture here. It's almost as engaging as the synchronized end-loader team that performed in Ossian Fest parade last week. They gave the Shriner clowns a run for their money. How can you not want to live here?
We walked among an impressive array of things to eat on a stick, and made our way to the Varied Industries Building. This is the place that exhibits quilts and other hand-made pieces of functional art. They once showed these items in kind of a dusty, hot, out-of-the way building, but a couple of years ago they erected a much nicer home for showing the blue ribbon winners and their lowly companions. Right. Lowly. We know what we're doing out here in fly-over country. You don't hear anybody in this exhibit hall saying, “You could get the same thing at Walmart for a lot less bother.”
People who make crafts for craft fairs talk about their experiences as exhibitors, and their collective observations are an echo. They speak of a betrayal, that their talents are belied as merely mass-producing articles with little cost of time or money. “I get so annoyed when people look over what I have and say, 'I can make that!' They don't seem to appreciate that it takes time and patience, not just the knowledge of how to construct an item.” If I find something I like at a craft fair, I'll buy it. I could never find anything similar in a store that would be made to most crafter's exacting standards.
No such belittling comments are heard in the Iowa State Fair Varied Industries Building. We honed in on the second floor, where the hand-made, art-to-use pieces were on display. Observers are always rewarded with the perfection of each year's harvest. Viewers in this exhibition hall speculate and discuss how something was made, admire the talent required, compliment the effort, and appreciate what they see. They wish for more hours in a day so they could learn to make it all themselves.
Looking at this year's crop of winners, I found myself conflicted. When we were at the knitting exhibits, I wanted to run home and pull out my needles. They have knitting machine specimens, as well as hand-knitted pieces. I have a knitting machine, but you know what I say, in my most disrespectful grammar: Me and machines don't get along. Garments! When was the last time I designed and made anything to wear? And hookers! I just cannot go there – there is no room in my life for hooking, too, though I would love to include it fully into my repertoire. Waaaaaah. I want to be a hooker!
Now the quilts – I can go there. I observe more than the finished quilt, and try to figure out how those quilts got from a bolt in a quilt shop to a berth at the Iowa State Fair. My distinct lack of competitiveness keeps me from aspiring to a fair ribbon, but not from looking at each years' winners. You can bet there are some who are dumbfounded that they won. Yes, we do have quilt snobs in the Midwest, but we have a heartier dose of modest quiltmakers who make quilts for the people they love, not for public recognition. They themselves are perplexed that more than one person would treasure what their needles wrought.
Machine quilting is becoming more and more common. I have tried it, and it is hard. You may want to refer to my previous ungrammatical observation about me and machines. If I can do something by hand, I'll do it that way, mainly to avoid a showdown with a dang bobbin of thread. That being said, we are seeing fewer and fewer quilts made entirely by one quiltmaker. The turn-of-the-century quilts from early in this millennium will hold a subset of rare hand-stitched phenoms. Make no mistake about it, the specimens of machine-quilted quilts we saw in Des Moines were pleasing, innovative, and done with great expertise. They were also plenteous. Hand-quilted quilts were few and far-between, and I could only hope that the person who pieced them was also the person who stitched them. We are talking a whole different category of quilts, by the way, which doesn't include friendship quilts constructed by many different hands as lintloving shows of appreciation and support.
This is not an attempt to discourage anyone from making quilts however they prefer, and in a way that gives them their best results. I don't want to leave the impression that hand-quilted quilts are always better than machine-quilted quilts. One trip to the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair would discredit that notion completely. My point is not to dissuade quilters from designing and creating according to their medium. We need all those quilts! It's an awareness thing.
My crusade is to raise awareness among quilters, and quilt-observers, of the need to appreciate and make more of these kinds of quilts from this point in history. Happily, some of my beginners are sitting with quilts on their laps and needles in their bethimbled hands. They ask questions about marking methods, and advance into the design concepts of quilting motifs that will best embellish their pieced originals. They are starting off their quilt careers knowing the value of their trouble, and that they will leave behind a prize from our era.
There is no “us” and “they” to this crusade. I have had quilts machine-quilted by very able machine-quilters, and admire the many techniques their procedure requires. This is an encouragement for more people to hand-stitch at least some of their quilts. It is worth your time and effort in history to do so. If you want to learn to quilt in an easy and unobtrusive way, I can show you. Other hand-quilters can show you, too. You don't have to be perfect in what you do, but you will most likely grow more satisfied with your results by the end of your first quilt. Your children, grandchildren, and beyond will see and touch your stitches, and be grateful for the connection.
Coincidentally, on they way home from Des Moines, I stopped in on my sister Lora. She returned a borrowed red wool jumper I'd made for The Dot when she was ten-years-old. I embroidered her monogram on the front of it in green and white, and it was our compromise Christmas dress of 1990. Morgan hated dresses, so I had her design one she could stomach to wear for the Christmas program at church that year, and then I made it up for her. The question that arose when I was in the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fair 2005, was answered. It has been nearly fifteen years since I made a garment. It brought back a craving that for now I will redirect into quilting, and dream of a little grandchild that I can someday clothe in a fabric embrace.
©Copyright August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
What Do You Get When You Cross A...
I have been with a group of quilters this summer, those in the church basement who are “Dancing on the Head of a Pin”. Recently Val, one of the newbies, and I discussed how quickly and blindly some of us fall in love with quilting. You can see it in a beginning class – some of them can't dump their flat points and misshapen blocks into the dust bin and get out of there fast enough. Others latch onto quilting like none other, and are planning their next forty-eleven quilts as they patiently and meticulously pin their current project. A group of very intelligent newbie-threadheads, they could choose among a limitless number of pastime activities. I asked some of them why they chose quilting.
It challenges one's reasoning capabilities to hash this out. For some, the attachment takes minutes, not days. “Shop hop”, an unheard-of term for these people in June, is now replacing the desire to be on time for work. I also hear the word “retire” conjugated in various ways:
“When I retire, I will quilt all the time.”
“I waited until I retired to start quilting, because I wanted to devote lots of my time to it.”
“I don't feel like retiring in the evening until I have worked on something linty.”
Okay, I admit the last one was mine, but it uses a form of the verb “to retire”, and indicates the level of obsession we feel about our passion. Perhaps it's the level of passion we feel about our obsession. Whichever suits your fancy, “to retire” and “to quilt” are frequently used in the same sentence.
Bev joined up. She lives across the street from Marie, one of the better quilters in northeast Iowa. Bev had somehow acquired a table runner project. I'm not sure if she bought it as a kit, or if she and Marie found the pattern and the fabric to get her started. Bev had cut out her table runner, then stopped. I got the impression that she didn't have the guts to continue, and joined this beginning class to finish it up. The fabrics are pastel and pleasing, their patterns forgettable, yet utile in their ability to melt the pallet into the whole. There were lots of comments on how pretty her fabric choices were, even before anyone knew how they were going to be used. Bev had been consulting with Marie about quilty things, and had obviously absorbed a lot of pertinent information from their discussions. Her table runner and this class were her opportunity to put thesis into practice.
She finished that table runner in a matter of weeks. Finished! Not only pieced, but quilted and bound, too. She quilted a motif – dragonflies – into some of the blocks, thus not restricting herself to stitching in the ditch or a quarter-inch away from the seam. She bound it up, too, and can tell you what she has learned in the process. And about her plans for the next quilt. And she asks about the next class. Bev was among the quilters I schlepped up to The Piecemakers quilt guild meeting in July, and she signed up on the spot.
Bev told me she always loved to sew, and had made her wedding dress. Living across the street from Marie for years, she was always looking at those quilts and wondering how Marie made them happen. As an experienced garment maker, Bev didn't think she could really grasp what she was looking at until she tried it herself. She wanted to demystify the process. She has been downsizing her life in these very early retirement years, but wanted to make one quilt, one puny little table runner, so she could appreciate Marie's better. When I told the class about having fabric stashes, she tuned me out with disinterest. She didn't want more stuff to put away.
I need to call Bev to apologize. I didn't mean to interfere with her plans for an orderly retirement. She is already burning out of control. She recently bought a new machine, and has two more quilts on deck right now. She was just commenting to Marie this week that she needs to run out and get some more fabric.
Tamie has quilters in her family. Her sewing machine was her high school graduation present, so you know she has been a threadhead for awhile. It was fun to see her daughter Tina come to church in the frilly and lacy dresses Tamie made for her when Tina was a youngster. I like the fact that Tina and her brother Nathan saw their mother sewing, since their generation were given “Consumer Science” where there had once been “Home Ec”. Tamie had already tried her hand at quilting, and is a better-than-respectable piecer. Her comment? “I want to learn to do it right.” She understands how long it takes to make a quilt, if you do it yourself from start to finish, and she didn't want to be looking at some foolish mistake for years to come. Though a serious student, she is also good-natured and playful. Her choice for the quilt class was a wisely-chosen project that allowed her to master basic techniques, yet give her the confidence to know she could continue on her own. What she really wanted to know was how to stitch the thing up, as she was already doing well with the piecing. We jokingly call her project “Cut Big, Piece Fast”. She has the quilt on her lap right now, stitching away. I can tell she's in no hurry, that she is loving what she is learning and basking in the amount of Tamie she is adding to her quilt with each stitch.
Renee only has one child left at home. He's sort of a trail-er, and the older two have been gone for a few years. After having three to run after, having just one is sort of like hobby-parenting to Renee and her husband Mike. Now she has time to try quilting. Read my lips -- she is good. She chose a log cabin quilt -- it has lots 'n lots of log cabin blocks in it, in one-inch finished strips. All of Renee's log cabin blocks are square. I think this speaks for itself – it's her first quilt, and all her log cabin blocks are square. The blocks are joined by sashing, and some of the sashing uses rail-fence-and-nine-patch, and some of it is sashing-and-cornerstones. The latter requires that she make connector squares in one corner of each of four log cabin blocks. It is picky and time-consuming, and she's doing it perfectly. Uh, Renee will be teaching the next class.
Renee told me she knew before she took the class that she would love quilting. She had been biding her time until the kids were gone, she was retired, and she could clean out one of the bedrooms for her own lint-filled pursuits. Always assuming that “retire” meant “quilting”, she was thankful to get her start five years prior to her projected goal date. “Otherwise I would have wasted five years when I could have been quilting!”
Carrie is the teacher's pet. Being an elementary teacher herself, she orders the learning process into segments, and completes each segment once she understands what she just learned. She's my pet because she made an Amish quilt, a 36” x 36” square with nine-patch blocks set on point, alternating with plain squares. Whenever she came to class, I would stalk her until I got to see her quilt. Amish quilts are my first-loves. She learned a little more about how important one's color choices are when designing an Amish quilt, and is quilting it up as I write this. I asked if she loved the feel of the quilt, now that it's sandwiched and she can feel the dimension her stitches add to it. You know they're hooked when they answer with their eyes before they even open their mouths.
Ranell has a determination that serves every new quilter well, with no unnecessary ego attached to what she is learning. When she discovered her quarter-inch marking was off after she had a block nearly completed, she took apart her Jacob's Ladder and put it all back together again so that it was a perfect square. On top of that, she let me use her experience as a teaching tool for the rest of the class. How god-fearing is that? Ranell had two more quilts started before she got her first, a Bear's Paw, all pieced. I guess you could say we performed a fabric-baptism on her.
Other beginners are Garnita, June, Les, Elaine, Janice, Jeri, Becky, Dawn, and Kathy. I won't be able to resist writing more about some of them another time. They all have sewing in their backgrounds, and I've seen what some of them (like Kathy) can do. Among them are a couple of natural designers (like Jeri) who have certainly knocked my socks off! We also have one multi-media artist, a full-time potter, who shall remain nameless. Let's just say her name starts with “D”, as in “Dawn”. Another broad hint is that we call her project “Dawn's Five-Minute Wall Hanging”. It turned out great – I am still shaking my head.
We have some excellent experienced quilters in the group: Kristen, Shirley, Sigrid, Hazel, and Ruth. Hazel is fervent in a very don't-brag-about-yourself Lutheran way. I love to see what she's made. It is always good and there's a story involved, in spite of the fact that she acknowledges her talent with a wave of the hand. Maybe she just doesn't know how good she is! Kristen is making slow and steady progress on a two color Ohio Star quilt for their bed. It's Amish-y, in black and a mottled royal blue. Two-color quilts are so striking, and one needs the assurance of their final wow-appeal to keep stitching. Quilters think ahead like that. What may appear boring isn't boring if you understand quilting. I wish I could go on about everyone today. They all bring their individual aims and ambitions to the whole.
A few would-be quilters signed up. They quickly found out there wasn't time for it right now, once they determined how involved it can get. My favorite was Laurel, who told me she discovered she didn't have time to buy the fabric for her project, let alone make a whole quilt. Someday, huh, Laurel?
Some have started projects, but their lives are such that they can't be in the zone right now, no matter how much they want to quilt. We're fine with that; quilting will be here whenever they come looking for it. We know how it is.
But I want to come back to Val. She and I were having the discussion to start with. Val, who never made a move towards quilting before June of this year, is now near-crazed with it. She is the single mother of one very active little boy. Val teaches at the community college during the regular school year, and takes the summers to be with Bjergen, her son. Aware that single moms need to find something of their own to counter-balance the constant demand of putting the child first, she thought she'd try quilting. The class happened to fall on the day of the week she had set aside to take care of herself. I tend to think Val knows who she is. You would, too, if you met her.
She selected a “medium” in the scale of difficulty for her first project. It's not that the blocks were impossible to construct, but there are several pieces in each, which ups the variables that could lead to frustration. She asked me questions when she was in the cutting stage, and drew boundaries -- make that clear boundaries -- about the order in which she could comprehend the answer and fit in with her own thought-out pattern. She designs in a similar fashion as I – for the person who will use the quilt. The need to add personal significance is as important as the uniformness of her seam allowances. Same here.
The result has been nearly flawless. Of course, no quilt is flawless, but every now and then you find a newbie that will go the extra mile to defeat as many bugaboos as possible. Way to go, Val. She had a vision for the outside border, and how it would relate to the binding. She dogged me until we figured out a way to make it work for her. She explored off the beaten path with backing choices, and even cell-phoned me from the street in front of my house, beckoning me out to tell her what I thought of the ultra-suede she was hoping to use. Don't worry, I got her back on track. Last week in class, she was trying to figure out how to make a pieced backing with a design that would perfectly coordinate with the quilt top. Sigh. I remember when I did that. She's starting to accept some of the limits of what you can do with a quilt, and perhaps understands better how those limits in themselves are exciting.
Val and I agreed that quilting allows us to be wildly creative and spontaneous, while at the same time doing things in a confident, neat, and orderly way. It's too subtle to explain unless you find yourself knee-deep in cut-up pieces of fabric. You will never know it's possible unless you quilt, and then you can't describe it. The closest we came was:
What do you get when you cross a hippie love-child with an anal-retentive wonk?
A quilter.
Copyright © August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
It challenges one's reasoning capabilities to hash this out. For some, the attachment takes minutes, not days. “Shop hop”, an unheard-of term for these people in June, is now replacing the desire to be on time for work. I also hear the word “retire” conjugated in various ways:
“When I retire, I will quilt all the time.”
“I waited until I retired to start quilting, because I wanted to devote lots of my time to it.”
“I don't feel like retiring in the evening until I have worked on something linty.”
Okay, I admit the last one was mine, but it uses a form of the verb “to retire”, and indicates the level of obsession we feel about our passion. Perhaps it's the level of passion we feel about our obsession. Whichever suits your fancy, “to retire” and “to quilt” are frequently used in the same sentence.
Bev joined up. She lives across the street from Marie, one of the better quilters in northeast Iowa. Bev had somehow acquired a table runner project. I'm not sure if she bought it as a kit, or if she and Marie found the pattern and the fabric to get her started. Bev had cut out her table runner, then stopped. I got the impression that she didn't have the guts to continue, and joined this beginning class to finish it up. The fabrics are pastel and pleasing, their patterns forgettable, yet utile in their ability to melt the pallet into the whole. There were lots of comments on how pretty her fabric choices were, even before anyone knew how they were going to be used. Bev had been consulting with Marie about quilty things, and had obviously absorbed a lot of pertinent information from their discussions. Her table runner and this class were her opportunity to put thesis into practice.
She finished that table runner in a matter of weeks. Finished! Not only pieced, but quilted and bound, too. She quilted a motif – dragonflies – into some of the blocks, thus not restricting herself to stitching in the ditch or a quarter-inch away from the seam. She bound it up, too, and can tell you what she has learned in the process. And about her plans for the next quilt. And she asks about the next class. Bev was among the quilters I schlepped up to The Piecemakers quilt guild meeting in July, and she signed up on the spot.
Bev told me she always loved to sew, and had made her wedding dress. Living across the street from Marie for years, she was always looking at those quilts and wondering how Marie made them happen. As an experienced garment maker, Bev didn't think she could really grasp what she was looking at until she tried it herself. She wanted to demystify the process. She has been downsizing her life in these very early retirement years, but wanted to make one quilt, one puny little table runner, so she could appreciate Marie's better. When I told the class about having fabric stashes, she tuned me out with disinterest. She didn't want more stuff to put away.
I need to call Bev to apologize. I didn't mean to interfere with her plans for an orderly retirement. She is already burning out of control. She recently bought a new machine, and has two more quilts on deck right now. She was just commenting to Marie this week that she needs to run out and get some more fabric.
Tamie has quilters in her family. Her sewing machine was her high school graduation present, so you know she has been a threadhead for awhile. It was fun to see her daughter Tina come to church in the frilly and lacy dresses Tamie made for her when Tina was a youngster. I like the fact that Tina and her brother Nathan saw their mother sewing, since their generation were given “Consumer Science” where there had once been “Home Ec”. Tamie had already tried her hand at quilting, and is a better-than-respectable piecer. Her comment? “I want to learn to do it right.” She understands how long it takes to make a quilt, if you do it yourself from start to finish, and she didn't want to be looking at some foolish mistake for years to come. Though a serious student, she is also good-natured and playful. Her choice for the quilt class was a wisely-chosen project that allowed her to master basic techniques, yet give her the confidence to know she could continue on her own. What she really wanted to know was how to stitch the thing up, as she was already doing well with the piecing. We jokingly call her project “Cut Big, Piece Fast”. She has the quilt on her lap right now, stitching away. I can tell she's in no hurry, that she is loving what she is learning and basking in the amount of Tamie she is adding to her quilt with each stitch.
Renee only has one child left at home. He's sort of a trail-er, and the older two have been gone for a few years. After having three to run after, having just one is sort of like hobby-parenting to Renee and her husband Mike. Now she has time to try quilting. Read my lips -- she is good. She chose a log cabin quilt -- it has lots 'n lots of log cabin blocks in it, in one-inch finished strips. All of Renee's log cabin blocks are square. I think this speaks for itself – it's her first quilt, and all her log cabin blocks are square. The blocks are joined by sashing, and some of the sashing uses rail-fence-and-nine-patch, and some of it is sashing-and-cornerstones. The latter requires that she make connector squares in one corner of each of four log cabin blocks. It is picky and time-consuming, and she's doing it perfectly. Uh, Renee will be teaching the next class.
Renee told me she knew before she took the class that she would love quilting. She had been biding her time until the kids were gone, she was retired, and she could clean out one of the bedrooms for her own lint-filled pursuits. Always assuming that “retire” meant “quilting”, she was thankful to get her start five years prior to her projected goal date. “Otherwise I would have wasted five years when I could have been quilting!”
Carrie is the teacher's pet. Being an elementary teacher herself, she orders the learning process into segments, and completes each segment once she understands what she just learned. She's my pet because she made an Amish quilt, a 36” x 36” square with nine-patch blocks set on point, alternating with plain squares. Whenever she came to class, I would stalk her until I got to see her quilt. Amish quilts are my first-loves. She learned a little more about how important one's color choices are when designing an Amish quilt, and is quilting it up as I write this. I asked if she loved the feel of the quilt, now that it's sandwiched and she can feel the dimension her stitches add to it. You know they're hooked when they answer with their eyes before they even open their mouths.
Ranell has a determination that serves every new quilter well, with no unnecessary ego attached to what she is learning. When she discovered her quarter-inch marking was off after she had a block nearly completed, she took apart her Jacob's Ladder and put it all back together again so that it was a perfect square. On top of that, she let me use her experience as a teaching tool for the rest of the class. How god-fearing is that? Ranell had two more quilts started before she got her first, a Bear's Paw, all pieced. I guess you could say we performed a fabric-baptism on her.
Other beginners are Garnita, June, Les, Elaine, Janice, Jeri, Becky, Dawn, and Kathy. I won't be able to resist writing more about some of them another time. They all have sewing in their backgrounds, and I've seen what some of them (like Kathy) can do. Among them are a couple of natural designers (like Jeri) who have certainly knocked my socks off! We also have one multi-media artist, a full-time potter, who shall remain nameless. Let's just say her name starts with “D”, as in “Dawn”. Another broad hint is that we call her project “Dawn's Five-Minute Wall Hanging”. It turned out great – I am still shaking my head.
We have some excellent experienced quilters in the group: Kristen, Shirley, Sigrid, Hazel, and Ruth. Hazel is fervent in a very don't-brag-about-yourself Lutheran way. I love to see what she's made. It is always good and there's a story involved, in spite of the fact that she acknowledges her talent with a wave of the hand. Maybe she just doesn't know how good she is! Kristen is making slow and steady progress on a two color Ohio Star quilt for their bed. It's Amish-y, in black and a mottled royal blue. Two-color quilts are so striking, and one needs the assurance of their final wow-appeal to keep stitching. Quilters think ahead like that. What may appear boring isn't boring if you understand quilting. I wish I could go on about everyone today. They all bring their individual aims and ambitions to the whole.
A few would-be quilters signed up. They quickly found out there wasn't time for it right now, once they determined how involved it can get. My favorite was Laurel, who told me she discovered she didn't have time to buy the fabric for her project, let alone make a whole quilt. Someday, huh, Laurel?
Some have started projects, but their lives are such that they can't be in the zone right now, no matter how much they want to quilt. We're fine with that; quilting will be here whenever they come looking for it. We know how it is.
But I want to come back to Val. She and I were having the discussion to start with. Val, who never made a move towards quilting before June of this year, is now near-crazed with it. She is the single mother of one very active little boy. Val teaches at the community college during the regular school year, and takes the summers to be with Bjergen, her son. Aware that single moms need to find something of their own to counter-balance the constant demand of putting the child first, she thought she'd try quilting. The class happened to fall on the day of the week she had set aside to take care of herself. I tend to think Val knows who she is. You would, too, if you met her.
She selected a “medium” in the scale of difficulty for her first project. It's not that the blocks were impossible to construct, but there are several pieces in each, which ups the variables that could lead to frustration. She asked me questions when she was in the cutting stage, and drew boundaries -- make that clear boundaries -- about the order in which she could comprehend the answer and fit in with her own thought-out pattern. She designs in a similar fashion as I – for the person who will use the quilt. The need to add personal significance is as important as the uniformness of her seam allowances. Same here.
The result has been nearly flawless. Of course, no quilt is flawless, but every now and then you find a newbie that will go the extra mile to defeat as many bugaboos as possible. Way to go, Val. She had a vision for the outside border, and how it would relate to the binding. She dogged me until we figured out a way to make it work for her. She explored off the beaten path with backing choices, and even cell-phoned me from the street in front of my house, beckoning me out to tell her what I thought of the ultra-suede she was hoping to use. Don't worry, I got her back on track. Last week in class, she was trying to figure out how to make a pieced backing with a design that would perfectly coordinate with the quilt top. Sigh. I remember when I did that. She's starting to accept some of the limits of what you can do with a quilt, and perhaps understands better how those limits in themselves are exciting.
Val and I agreed that quilting allows us to be wildly creative and spontaneous, while at the same time doing things in a confident, neat, and orderly way. It's too subtle to explain unless you find yourself knee-deep in cut-up pieces of fabric. You will never know it's possible unless you quilt, and then you can't describe it. The closest we came was:
What do you get when you cross a hippie love-child with an anal-retentive wonk?
A quilter.
Copyright © August 2005 Kari E.O. Burns
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)